English Essay

Boland

Kawthar Boland.

Professor trip.

English 113A.

18 Feb 2014.

Destroying gender stereotyping.

No one can deny that stereotyping are playing a big role in gender. In most of the houses there might be a pink room with princesses designs and pink wallpaper with dolls, doll houses and small little kitchen in the girls’ room, while in the boys’ rooms you’ll absolutely find cars, trucks, Spiderman and a blue wallpaper. There might be some girls that are interested in boys’ toys and so for the boys, but most of the parents won’t be satisfied of that and unhappy. Some of the parents may be disappointed and not proud of their children.

When ever we go to a toy store we see two divided sections into pink which has the dolls, Barbie, doll houses and kitchen sets, blue section which has cars, trucks, super heroes and action figures. Boys sometime learn about how to be a good soldier, while girls sometimes play with babies and kitchen sets, they learn how to nurture.

I have seen a video in which they ask some kids questions about a girl doll and a boy doll, the question were about which of the dolls take care of the kids and which of the dolls work to get money? Both the girls and the boys answered that the girl doll takes care children and housework and the boy doll do the work outside the house to get money for the family.

In my point of view, I think that girls grow up and notice their hair growing, they want to take care of their hair Like princesses, love to wear dresses and take care of themselves. As we can see, toys get bigger as the kids grow up. Girls start with playing with dolls and then they start to wear makeup and be pretty.

Growing up, I used to play with boys toys more than girls toys. “ the boys always preferred the toys that go or move, and the girls preferred the toys that promote nurturing and facial features” By Jennifer Goodwin in Composing gender. When I was a child, I grew up with two elder brothers and 2 younger, I was the only girl in house full of boys, I really was interested in boys toys and activities and I sometimes play with my brothers. I was also interested in dolls and Barbie houses and girls toys too but when I played with girl toys I played by myself and it was boring and I felt happier when I played with my brothers. I used to play with dolls when I go to my cousins house. One day, when I was 9 years old, my brothers invited my boys’ cousins to come and stay in our house for the summer, their parents were outside the country for some medical issues. Summer was approximately 3 months, I spent those 3 months with my brothers and cousins and it was a really amazing summer. One day, they went out to buy some toys and they all bought toys guns with fake little yellow bullets and the got me one to, we made two teams and decided to play a war so we started by shooting each other and it was fun. I enjoyed it more than playing with the girls’ toys. After that, my mother came home and saw all the mess and saw her girl playing with boys’ toys and they were upset about it and talked to me and tried not to let me play with boys toys and she that I should grow up and care about my beauty and my duty as a girl. I also had a boy’s haircut. My other always tells me that I am a girl and a girl takes care of herself and wears nice dresses and skirts. I grew up and stared to take care of my hair and my appearance and started to wear makeup and everything changed, maybe I still care about fast cars, but I don’t feel that its wrong for a girl to be interested in fast cars and my mother doesn’t like it when I talk about it.

Goodwin said, “ Even if your boy prefers playing with trucks, make sure you talk to him and teach him about nurturing” (89), Most of the parents should talk to their sons about life and how to raise their family in future and to do the hard work to keep their family happy and pleased. When my brother decided to study aboard my mother talked to him about how he should clean his clothes and she taught him some easy recipes to cook sometimes for himself instead of eating fast food and lots of talking, and so am I, she told me a lot and taught me a lot of things that could help me with my life alone.

After few years, my cousins had a baby and it was a boy, When he became 10 months to 1 year he was in love with Barbie because of his older sister, he was playing with her and her Barbie all the time and his parents didn’t care about it because they said that he is just a baby. When he started to grow up he was still playing with the Barbie until he was 3 years old and it was the time to start school. One day, he took his Barbie to school with him and the boys started laughing at him. He was so annoyed and he cried a lot about what happened, and after few weeks, he decided to stop playing with dolls. He got to know boys in his school and started to play with the same toys they were playing with. Maybe the boys was playing with the Barbie and dolls and he pretend to be a good father to them and take care of them, I think that both girls and boys should learn about nurturing. It is not unusual as what people think.

Media and advertising always show that girls should be pretty, fall in love and get married. Nowadays most women take care of what they will wear and what makeup they are going to put on. They don’t even see there beauty without makeup.

Eventually, it’s everyone’s choice to do what they want to do, for kids, they have to decide wither they want to play with dolls or trucks and to do what ever she or he wants to do when they grew up.

Parents should avoid being strict about the toys there children choose and start to allow them to play with what ever they want. They should not care about what the people would think of thier son or daughter. They are just a kids and it really doesn’t matter what they want to play with if they are happy and enjoying what they are doing. They are only kids that want to play and had fun.

Work cited page.

Goodwin, Jennifer. “ Even-Nine-Months-Old Choose Gender-Specific Toys.” Composing gender. Ed. Groner Rachel and John F. O’Hara. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014, 88-90. Print.

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